Journalism
According to the 1935 Legend, “What (North Side) high school students are needing is not more leisure time, but aid in learning to use it properly. The burden which falls upon the classroom teacher is heavy enough. It is to the club that students must look for guidance in learning to use extra time well.”
There were only 600 students when the school opened in 1927. How vacant and spacious the school must have seemed with those few students. At its max, the school can hold almost three times that many students. In 1936 the school had 1,450 students. “The school had been built, but that was all. Before this majestic structure ran a dirt street, inaccessible in wintry weather, instead of the fine cement one which has taken its place. There were board walks instead of our cement ones we know now. It was not until 1928 that those improvements were made (1937 Legend). Since then, journalism, clubs, and student organizations have been a cornerstone at North Side High School since its inception in 1929. Legend, the annual yearbook has been student run since it started printing pages. Not only that, but The Quill Club was among the first clubs to be initiated into school life. In the fall of 1927, Charles E. Dickinson organized this group into one of proficient literary functions. It was not until the following year that the first “Ripples” appeared as an offering to higher education in literature at North Side.
As its name implies, it takes up the encouragement of original writing among students of the two upper classes in whom some measure of ability arouses an interest in the club’s activity. Once each year, to record, in a sense, the progress made by its members in the year and to preserve for its satisfaction and the pleasure of other students their best work, the Quill Club publishes Ripples, a literary magazine which contains, besides the writing of official Quill Club members, specially selected material from the English classes, expressed both in prose and in poetry. The purpose set for the Quill Club by Mr. Dickinson since its inception has been: “always to spend its time not in meetings and social activities, but instead in writing for personal satisfaction and enjoyment and development of better writing.” Its goal is the publication each year of a literary magazine.
